A Book You Can Drink, and 5 Other Unusual Publications That Transcend Book Form

Stop the ebooks vs. physical books debate for a minute, because some hardcovers could never exist in the Cloud. An innovative new book designed by humanitarian group WaterisLife and ad agency DDB is so much more than reading material — it's actually designed to save lives.

On the surface,The Drinkable Book is a book about water safety. Every page is perforated into two squares, and it's printed in two different languages — English on the top square, and a local language on the bottom, depending on where the book is distributed. (The first print run will be distributed in Kenya, so the bottom language is Swahili.) Each page has a distinctive orange color, and is meant to be ripped out of the book after the information is absorbed, because — believe it or not — the pages double as water filters.

Take a page from The Drinkable Book, literally, and you'll be able to filter enough water for about 30 days, meaning the whole book will last you up to four years. The filtering action comes from silver nanoparticles that coat each page, attracting toxins and bacteria; naturally, the other elements of the page, such as the ink, are also non-toxic.

4. The Mechanical Word by Karen Bleitz and Richard Price

If you've got some extra cash lying around, invest in this five-volume series that pairs poetry with actual mechanics. Readers turn a crank to reveal "the forces hidden within the constructs of communication."